ABSTRACT
Knowledge mobilization of educational research is often discussed in terms of finding creative ways to engage diverse public users in research. The use of art forms to both produce and represent research knowledge has attracted considerable interest in my field of adult education (see e.g. Butterwick and Selman 2003; Clover and Stalker 2007), perhaps particularly in the service of engaging and representing those who have experienced marginalization or oppression. Of course, art-based educational research is by now a well-developed field. Debates about purposes and approaches have been wide-ranging since Eisner's (1981) first promotions of ‘artistic’ inquiry as distinct from ‘scientific’, but equally powerful. The practices of art and of research are often seen as enacting very different worlds, with different and sometimes conflicting languages, criteria, and audiences. Mixing these practices – or, more fundamentally, these ways of knowing – opens tensions and ethical questions that ultimately double back to challenge central assumptions about what comprises research, and what is most valuable in educational research. This chapter tells the story of what can happen when researchers who describe themselves as non-artists attempt to work with art forms for purposes of knowledge mobilization.
